Current Treatment Plan Not Working??

The Lambda free light chain proteins continue to go up.  Rebecca stopped the current treatment plan a couple of weeks ago.  It was 1 mg/meter squared of Velcade on days 1 and 8 along with 20 mg of Dex and 20 mg a day of Revlimid on days 1 to 14 and then take 7 days off for a 21 day cycle.  The day she took the Velcade subcutaneous shot the peripheral neuropathy would increase.  It did seem to go back to the normal level after a few days.

The current plan now is to have a PET scan and bone marrow biopsy.    This is schedule for the first part of May.  Then all her records will be sent to Vanderbilt in Nashville to see what they can offer.

She has been indicating the back pain has been getting worse at times.  I wonder if the myeloma is located in the vertebrae and starting to cause more pain.  The PET scan should show the location of the myeloma. 

New Treatment Plan

The Lambda light chain number doubled in the last month.  We had an appointment with our Doctor today to discuss this.  He is recommending we change to a different treatment plan.  She will stop the current treatment plan today and take a break until next Tuesday.  Then she will take 1 mg/meter squared of Velcade on days 1 and 8 along with 20 mg of Dex and 20 mg a day of Revlimid on days 1 to 14 and then take 7 days off for a 21 day cycle.  The Velcade will be given subcutaneous.  She had taken this before as IV and developed peripheral neuropathy and still has it.  So if it makes this worse she will have to discontinuous taking it.

The other issue is that her blood counts have been decreasing since she started taking the Revlimid.  Her platelets is down to 47 now.  Her immune system is also compromised.   

Continuing with Revlimid and Dex

We are hoping the Revlimid and Dex will do a number on the myeloma.  Rebecca is still doing a good job of putting up with all the difficulties of this monster.  She has been taking 25 mg/day of Revlimid on a 21 day cycle on and 7 days off along with 8 mg of Dex on days 1, 8, and 15.

The 24 hour urine test on 12/30/11 showed a little over 600 mg of Bence Jones protein.  This is the Lambda free light chain protein secreted by the myeloma cells that make it through the kidneys into the urine.  It is important that these pass through the kidneys and not clog the kidney filters up.  She has been keeping her fluid intake up.  This number was 3647 mg/24hrs on 2/27/09 when she was diagnosed.  Her creatinine has been stable at 1.1 for the last year.